The reddit blackout is even more effectivte than expected! 5177/8829 (~60%) of subreddits are still dark [1] and the posts per minute are down to 1000 from 1400 [2].
This is huge. Subreddits were supposed to be back up yesterday. I personally missed Reddit the first day but now I am super comfortable here.
Glad to have found a new place to hang out!
Edit: Reddit has 100k subs, 60% out of those who officially signed up
Only to add some clarification: reddark is only showing you the list of subs that announced they’d go dark versus the amount of those subs that have gone dark.
The exact number is hard to pin down, but reddit claims to have “100k+” active communities.
So 60% of the subs that said they’d go dark are still dark.
Correct. At best estimate that’s 5%of reddit communities but the impact in users might be much larger as a lot of those 100k subs have just 1 or 2 subs
I deleted my 12 year old account history after the “AMA” with Spez and will be fully deleting my account on the 30th. That being said I clicked back on reddit today and browsed a bit of what was up and after spending the last few days on kbin and beehaw I don’t think I can go back.
The amount of toxicity that I was putting up with on reddit was astounding. I can’t believe I didn’t notice it was so bad, even on the smaller subs I was active in. I always have referred to reddit as a cesspit with islands of good content, but I think the landscape changed while I wasn’t paying attention.
I do hope the protest works and 3rd party devs can continue their wonderful apps, but reddit is kind of over for me regardless. The fediverse somehow feels like the early internet, kinda like going home.
Let’s not have too rose colored glasses. A lot of it is because lemmy and kbin are tiny and haven’t received their “eternal September” moment yet. It’s bound to get worse so I hope our moderation tools will evolve sufficiently until then
While you’re not wrong, the fact that it’s an open and decentralized protocol and not a corporate-controlled silo makes the ultimate outcomes of the fediverse unpredictable. Better for actual human users, I think, and at least it’ll be interesting to watch and participate in while those outcomes develop (likely over years if not decades).
We’ll see. The big problems will arrive when it becomes valuable for spammers
Right there with you, also had a 12 year old account and deleted it. It’s absurd how this is going. Federated definitely feels more tight knit and less just a media consumption platform.
The fediverse is definitely feeling like the early internet, and it’s really taken me by surprise. Even though I reminisced about it and lamented it’s loss, I think I never really understood just how much I missed it.
It’s like 1995 all over again, and it’s glorious.
Thank you for eloquently putting into words what I’ve been feeling.
The day before the blackout, I was feeling a lot of grief. Reddit had been my “home” for more than a decade, and I thought i would miss the community. Instead, I feel…lighter? Things are much nicer here!
100% more nicer. Les toxic and definitely a feeling of humanity. Hard to explain, but the majority of comments over at reddit just don’t feel human. Needed to change in order to realize.
I’m finding that a lot of it was just habit for me. I kept opening Reddit without making any conscious decision to, so I moved my new Jerboa app where my rif app used to be and now my finger hits Jerboa when I’m feeling bored instead.
I’m having a similar experience in realising how much toxicity I’ve normalised on reddit. Going back on there now feels so absurd.
That ama was the most unprofessional bunch of dogs shit I have ever seen from the ceo of a multimillion dollar company.
multimillion
Multibillion. Well, theoretically.
Agree! I cleared out all the outrage, political and “negative” subreddits I was subbed to last month and… there wasn’t much left. I don’t feel like user engagement is being gamed here, it’s nice.
Just a heads up, those 8k subs are just the ones that pledged to go dark. The actual total number of subreddits is much higher.
Still, 60% of subs still participating is much higher than I had expected.
Came to clarify the same. Title is very misleading.
Agreed though, actually surprised at how many are still dark.
I also didn’t expect that large of a percentage to continue. It’s very rare nowadays for people to resist capitalism and just end up complicit in the end like the Netflix situation.
I’m glad Reddit has a backbone against its tyrant.
Still, 60% of subs still participating is much higher than I had expected.
It doesn’t surprise me. Never underestimate apathy.
Corrected. Thanks for pointing it out
This is seriously impressive! I think a lot of us were worried this would all collapse after a couple of days. I don’t think they knew how many of us were looking for an excuse to quit. Their mobile site is trash. Their desktop site is trash. Their mobile app is trash. Forcing us to use them was just not a strong bargaining proposition.
Comment levels are back to normal. But those creating the posts, initiating engagement are down and it will probably become worse once the API changes are in effect.
Subreddits are dark and posts will disappear from the Google Index reducing traffic to the site. Many big subs, as r/formula1 or r/apple to name a few, are dark indefinitely.
Moderators, those who keep the platform more or less peaceful, are sick of it - as you can see in the blackout rates.
The casual normie or lurker will see a drop in content, the site will gradually or exponentially loose its top value users and become a Facebook.
Or not. We’ll know in a few months to come, the internet is a fast paced place.
I agree, it definitely was uncomfortable moving from reddit at first, but seeing how familiar the site was, and how much nicer the community is, it feels more like an upgrade than just swapping platforms.
Also, I didn’t expect the protest would have so much of an impact, but I’m all for it!
You can feel humans behind these posts. No AI generated content. No toxicity, no “in conclusion” and stupid summaries. Amazing
I feel that so much.
No bots. No companies or agendas. Too small to be interesting to them as yet. I like it.
Can we please keep the discussion focused on Rampart!
I’m with you. It really is amazing how much kinder this community is. I love it!
I deleted my 10 year old account this morning!
This is the way
I will be doing it later today as well
Subs going dark is great but keeping users off is the real goal. I’m not even going to view anything Reddit until corporate pulls back
reddit is dead, it happens to all websites eventually and this is a long time coming. I’ll never go back, I’m happy to have found the Fediverse.
but damn, if that was really it (hypothetically), it was a rapid fkn downfall. sure they stumbled for a while but nowhere from falling.
The big test for users is going to be once the apps shut down. Right now, it’s still very convenient to browse whatever is left on reddit. On July 1st…we’ll see.
https://reddark.untone.uk/ There are big subreddits indefinitely dark. The drive will reduce once google stops indexing hidden posts. And the moderation bot situation is another story…
Almost 30% drop in posts per minute probably demonstrates better the real impact this blackout has had. And that’s seems pretty drastic. Reddit must feel the impact.
Revoking the API really felt like one of those, “pull-up the ladder,” moments. The API access and the choice of 3rd party UI’s it allowed seemed like part of Reddit’s initial community-focused strategy, a method to drive people there from other platforms by being more open and accessible by allowing people to experience it the way they wanted. Then, they stupidly pulled a Digg by revoking that with no way back.
I mean it’s great and all just don’t forget we’re not here purely as anti-redditors, we’re also here to build the new community. Not looking back is the only way to move forward
Thank you for saying this! This post is merely to demonstrate the power of a unified community. The reddit community came together stronger than anyone expected and has ever happened.
I’m doing my part
I have to wonder how much of what’s left is just repost bots and spam bots. I’ve noticed since the blackout and I’ve stopped opening the app much, I’ve gotten a lot more of those stupid onlyfan bots following me.
Well, bots will be shut of as well.
Unless they are Reddit bots.
There are stories (not sure of their truth) of regional subs being started and filled with reposts translated to the regional language - to the point of idioms not making sense when translated.
There are pictures of a while string of comments from different accounts saying “time to dust off my laptop and use the web version I guess” (or something like that).I have absolutely no doubt that Reddit is using paid actors or AI actors to generate/push content/interactions
That allegedly happened recently with some German language subreddit, the admins had prepopulated it with badly translated comments from a bunch of bot accounts they control. I never actually verified that was true and don’t know German to verify, but that’s at least a recent allegation I’ve seen within the past several months that is supposed to be backed by evidence.
what a world we live in, eh?
2 days will do nothing, give them a week next time we do this
Screw a week, we should have gone indefinite from the start. Spez would have pissed himself
No, he would have immediately replaced the mods with internal people and internal bots, and turned off the “private” option. Frankly, I expect he’ll do that anyway, or, in 30 days, a whole bunch of them will be going up on RedditRequest - with a new group of powermods.
According to the the article’s own source, https://blackout.photon-reddit.com, traffic is pretty much back to what it was before the black out. Not sure where they are getting that large drop from. Unless they are cherry picking a high start and finishing somewhere in the middle of the normal daily ebb and flow.
Yeah it’s mostly around the same, even it it’s capped to the largest 1500 subs
interesting. nevertheless an undeniable amount of big subs are staying down indefinitely. stumbled upon the r/ModCoord thread earlier, r/formula1 or r/apple just to name a few
This is the way
